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50 years ago today (serious topic alert)
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By *abio OP Man
over a year ago
Newcastle and Gateshead |
Martin Luther King gave his "I have a dream" speech....
I Listen to it from time to time as it is one of the speeches of our generation.....
so how have we do race wise in the last 50 years....
have we come far enough? |
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Obviously things have changed a little since the time MLK made that speech. When he made that speech you still had segregation in the US. Although some would argue it still exists in other forms.
I don't think it's moved on enough tbh.
Interestingly MLK very nearly didn't use that 'I have a dream' segment of the speech. He had used the same speech several times previously and his aids said it was a little clichéd and tired. He agreed to cut it out but then inexplicably decided during the speech to use it and ad libbed it back in. Boom! |
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By *icketysplitsWoman
over a year ago
Way over Yonder, that's where I'm bound |
If you didn't catch it this morning listen to the R4 tribute. Lots of very inspirational people reading the speech with some comments.
We've come further than the fifty years prior to his speech.
There's still further to go and that involves tackling some of the more uncomfortable issues around black on black racism, misogyny, the role of men in parenting, entrenched institutionalised racism and not having a hierarchy of prejudice and disadvantage.
Who is able to articulate a new narrative on race? I know it's not me but I am trying to piece it together.
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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I think we have come along way over the past 50 years. Although I feel there is still a negative portrayal of ethnic groups in society. The media tend to only report the negative aspects of society and hence any wrong doing by individuals tends to paint a bad impression of that particular group. I feel that there is still racial hatred today, but unfortunately it is born out of mistrust rather than ignorance. I feel that the media are partly to blame. They always refer to someone's ethnic background when reporting incidents. Not the individual alone.
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"If you didn't catch it this morning listen to the R4 tribute. Lots of very inspirational people reading the speech with some comments.
We've come further than the fifty years prior to his speech.
There's still further to go and that involves tackling some of the more uncomfortable issues around black on black racism, misogyny, the role of men in parenting, entrenched institutionalised racism and not having a hierarchy of prejudice and disadvantage.
Who is able to articulate a new narrative on race? I know it's not me but I am trying to piece it together.
"
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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It'c come a long way since the speech, especially when you compare it the times of the slave trade
But were still a long way to true equality in my opinion |
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By *abio OP Man
over a year ago
Newcastle and Gateshead |
its been a weird one for me...
there was a fantasic guardian piece yesterday about the fears surrounding the march and the expected riot that never was (3 people arrested all day ... all white)
the fact that only the first 7 paragraphs were scripted, then as they said, the shout of one prompted him to go "off speach".....
i am actually really looking forward to the obama speach later on...
have we come far enough.... we are getting there! in the uk at a faster speed than america, which was one of the things I had to get use to when i first came over here..... |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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Think we are going the right way, and particularly for the USA that speech 50 years ago was a serious awakening. MLK was the voice that broke through the noise, and I think we are all better off for that speech, but it was only the culmination of action by many many others who built the stage for it to be delivered.
Globally I don't have much hope for the problem of discrimination against minorities disappearing. tribal, racial, religion, sexuality, age, or any other minority it seems that we have to have someone to blame. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Think we are going the right way, and particularly for the USA that speech 50 years ago was a serious awakening. MLK was the voice that broke through the noise, and I think we are all better off for that speech, but it was only the culmination of action by many many others who built the stage for it to be delivered.
Globally I don't have much hope for the problem of discrimination against minorities disappearing. tribal, racial, religion, sexuality, age, or any other minority it seems that we have to have someone to blame."
The curse of free speech |
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By *icketysplitsWoman
over a year ago
Way over Yonder, that's where I'm bound |
"Think we are going the right way, and particularly for the USA that speech 50 years ago was a serious awakening. MLK was the voice that broke through the noise, and I think we are all better off for that speech, but it was only the culmination of action by many many others who built the stage for it to be delivered.
Globally I don't have much hope for the problem of discrimination against minorities disappearing. tribal, racial, religion, sexuality, age, or any other minority it seems that we have to have someone to blame."
It does make it more complex that with a global society and a global economy we now have we need to learn to overcome the natural fear of others that protected communities in the past. Learning respect and co-operation for our future survival is where we need to get to.
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By *umourCouple
over a year ago
Rushden |
I think we could, perhaps have got further. There are of course still divides, but not just racial. I believe there will always be these divides, because the human race is fickle and has to have someone else to blame.
Legislation doesn't always help either! Equality laws have caused friction in some areas of life where none existed before. Positive discrimination was always a bad idea, no one should show favourites. Looking for perpetrators of crime and having to stop both black and white youths even though the person responsible was black seems silly to me. I never saw any complaints about only white people getting stopped!
All that being said.. I believe we have a way to go and I also have the same kind of dream that MLK had.. A time when no one is discriminated against.. I don't really want to live in that world, it would mean we were all the same race, colour and creed. It would mean that we were all carbon copies of each other..
Although I hate to see anyone discriminated against, I am also realistic enough to know that all the time people are different in some way, there will be discrimination.. |
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"If you didn't catch it this morning listen to the R4 tribute. Lots of very inspirational people reading the speech with some comments.
We've come further than the fifty years prior to his speech.
There's still further to go and that involves tackling some of the more uncomfortable issues around black on black racism, misogyny, the role of men in parenting, entrenched institutionalised racism and not having a hierarchy of prejudice and disadvantage.
Who is able to articulate a new narrative on race? I know it's not me but I am trying to piece it together.
"
Spot on!..will be worth watching the TV prog tonight..lots of contemporary film archive included..should give some indication of how far we have come. |
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"If you didn't catch it this morning listen to the R4 tribute. Lots of very inspirational people reading the speech with some comments.
We've come further than the fifty years prior to his speech.
There's still further to go and that involves tackling some of the more uncomfortable issues around black on black racism, misogyny, the role of men in parenting, entrenched institutionalised racism and not having a hierarchy of prejudice and disadvantage.
Who is able to articulate a new narrative on race? I know it's not me but I am trying to piece it together.
"
agreed.. |
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By *icketysplitsWoman
over a year ago
Way over Yonder, that's where I'm bound |
I do think some of the "how far we have come" is both related to and confused by the fact that travel has been easier in the last fifty years.
The fact that people can, and do, meet others from other cultures has helped to shape some of the changes and new narratives. By the same token, that easier exchange of cultures causes others to feel the fear of difference even more as they see any acceptance of that difference as a diminution of their own culture rather a mutual enhancement.
Since Fabio started this thread I have been thinking about the journey of the last fifty years along different lines to my first post. The biggest change and acceptance has been food. I have met very strong willed, intractable racists who just love a curry at least once a week.
Getting people around the table, with food, to get to know each other is a good way to go. We can make the changes one meal at a time. |
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By *nnyMan
over a year ago
Glasgow |
".......I have met very strong willed, intractable racists who just love a curry at least once a week.
.............."
Racists don't associate curry with India/ Pakistan, they associate it with M&S. |
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By *nnyMan
over a year ago
Glasgow |
Correctly or otherwise, the media continues to portray black people, especially in the UK, as perpetrators of crime in numbers out of all proportion to their %age of the population (mind you, so are left-handers).
In the USA, black people seem to be almost equally victims and culprits but the numbers incarcerated are still out of proportion to the general population.
The fact the Metropolitan Police felt the need to create Operation Trident ought to have been a warning but it seems it went unheeded. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Looking for perpetrators of crime and having to stop both black and white youths even though the person responsible was black seems silly to me. I never saw any complaints about only white people getting stopped!
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I think you are being a bit naive with this comment. If the police are stopping black people when looking for a suspect who is known to be white it would be incredibly stupid and vice versa. The problem is the 'random' stops where the police are fishing for wrongdoers. The group of teenagers hanging around because there is often in this country nothing better for them to do. The police were/are more likely to stop and search black youths than white youths even when more white youths will be found to be carrying weapons or drugs.
Didn't the Nazi party want to keep their linage 'pure'?
I know it Godwin's law etc. Would you suggest we bring in some new laws to prevent interracial breeding once the amount of pure breeds in this country reaches a certain level??? I'd say interracial couples are a tiny minority as it is and to say we are all going to be the same is just ridiculous.
Living in the far(ish) south west I find the amount of racism quite high, maybe not to people personally but from comments I hear from people about others. I worked with a guy from Ghana and after working in a house in Cornwall for approximately 8 hours the elderly woman refused his request to use the loo....
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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It was a decent documentary with some interesting glimpses of George Wallace and Bull Connor. I studied the Civil Rights movement at university, and wrote essays on those two jokers - but I'd never seen the clip of "Bull" pledging to die in defence of segregation.
My old man is an old school Geordie ex-army Sergeant - hardly a liberal - but we grew up with a poster of MLK's speech on our living room wall. It still makes me well-up. |
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By *ezebelWoman
over a year ago
North of The Wall - youll need your vest |
The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, annexed to the Lorraine Motel, is the best museum Ive ever been to. One of those places that manages to make you feel both inspired and sick to the pit of your stomach at the same time. |
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